She limped slowly up the staircase, struggling the urge to take two steps at a time. She would trip and fall again, make a fool of herself. And, she reminded herself, you're just going to make your knee worse, you moron. God, she felt stupid. That poor boy had been so kind to her, and she had behaved horribly to him. She wondered why she ever opened her mouth. She also realised that this was the most likely explanation to why she didn't seem to have friends. She wished that she could have another go at talking to him. But she couldn't, so there was no point in lamenting over the unjust rules of the Universe. Her brow creased into a forlorn expression as she felt guilt bubble in her chest. Ayano was the cause of Taro's embarrassment, so it was only right for her to apologise.
Don't bother, you're just going to make it worse!
Ayano sighed dejectedly; she was right. She probably would make everything worse. That was the only thing she could do. Ayano knew she was wallowing in self-pity, but had stopped caring. She was almost at the rooftop, but she was also almost in tears.
Being 'almost' somewhere is very different to actually being there. In the same way Ayano was only one floor away from standing in the cool breeze of the wind and the glowing heat of the sun, she was still a ways from sobbing in full view of her classmates.
She was plodding up the stairs, finally feeling better, when somebody came out of nowhere, and sent her toppling like a flicked domino. She grabbed the nearest thing to her, which happened to be the stiff collar of the boys' uniform. She had expected him to be sturdier, but she was incorrect. He came tumbling down with her.
'Why does this keep happening? Do people at this school have some sort of vendetta against me?' She whispered to herself, waving her hands above her head to find the banister. After hauling herself up, she offered a hand to the very dazed looking, and slightly ruffled figure beside her. He blinked slowly, then sniffed and raised a hand to his head. He winced when he touched it, then pulled his hand back in front of his face. He was relieved to see that there was no blood, and broke into a goofy, and - if Ayano was being honest, sweet - smile.
'Are you ok?' Ayano said, squatting down next to the boy.
He looked at her, as if realising the events that had transpired, and her existence. He took her hand, and barely managed to pull himself up, Ayano having to take most of the boy's weight.
'Thanks.' the boy mumbled, with the sort of expression that lead her to believe that he couldn't stand up by himself. For this reason, she didn't let go of his arm.
'Can you walk properly?' She said slowly, pronouncing each word clearly so as not to confuse him.
'Uh, yeah, duh!' He wrenched his arm from her grasp, taking two long strides before face-planting the floor. Well, almost. Ayano pulled with every fibre of strength to keep him from falling down the stairs again, so much so that he fell backwards and into her arms.
She staggered at the weight of him, her spine painfully pinned against the metal railing of the staircase. In the distance, she heard the town bell chime half past. Nobody would be coming for a long time, and she was too far away to shout for help. She couldn't leave him, either. He was completely helpless, for God's sake! Ayano let out a quiet but distinctly pissed groan, and lay the boy carefully on the ground. She scooped his head and neck, then lifted him from the nook of his knees. She started laughing slightly at the absurdity of it, but gave up as she realised quickly that she needed to reserve her energy for carrying a 5,11"-giant down to the bottom floor. It would be helpful to know that this particular building was four stories high, and that Ayano had fallen down from the third-and-a-landing*-th floor to the third floor. This means that our gallant heroine must carry someone roughly 7 inches taller that her down three flights of stairs. For anyone unwilling to do mathematics when attempting to enjoy a poorly written fan fiction, this was incredibly difficult.
His head was rested on her shoulder and his eyes looked a little dull and glassy. She worried about him when he went quiet, so resolved to constantly asking him questions.
'What's your favourite colour?'
'Green, I like green. It's a nice colour. Most things are green, you know.' He looked up at her, his stormy-grey eyes innocent and wide. She smiled down at him, almost tripping in the process. This lead to him wrapping his rather muscular arms around her neck, and Ayano snarling softly to herself, wondering why she was babysitting a fully grown man.
'Oh, are they now? That's very interesting. Won't you...' she made the sound of a winded mongoose as adjusted his position in her arms, her voice strained,' please tell me more?'
He spoke about the colour green incessantly the entire time she held onto him. What was once something of an ordinary colour to Ayano remained that way; his disconnected ramblings about the different shades of green were not the most fascinating speeches she had ever had the pleasure to listen to.
By the time she got to the nurse's office, her face was red, her arms were weak, but her teeth were gritted with pride and determination.
She kicked the door lightly, still supporting the oaf in her arms, 'Can you... please... open the... door?' She panted.
It was opened immediately by a rather pretty woman around her mother's age. Her dark hair was cropped around her ears, framing kind, charcoal eyes. Her face seemed to be made for smiling, with plump, pink cheeks and dimples. Ayano's tired mind read the rectangular card hanging from one of the pockets of her trousers as 'Nurse Masuta' in bold black ink. The Nurse watched the dark-haired boy clung to the pretty, and pocket-sized girl with complete child-like adoration upon his face, and smirked slightly. Ayano barely seemed to notice, she was too busy trying to stop her legs from giving way beneath her.
'What's the idiot done now?' Nurse Masuta tutted.
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*A landing is not quite a floor / story, and is designed to act as a path between multiple staircases when the architecture cannot allow for curves.
Chapter Updated! First Uploaded - (17/04/2017); Most Recent Update - (25/06/2017)
I really enjoyed writing this chapter. I'm pretty sure I've made it clear who the second love interest is, after all, I wrote about him in this chapter. I would have done more, but I was WELL over the 1000 mark... you'll hear more from sweet little Budo in the next chapter.
So... I've changed the format I use now. I figured people got annoyed hearing me gush endlessly about how thankful I am that I have (x) readers, so I figured that the footnote at the end would be the best alternative. Those of you who appreciate it can read these little A/N, and those of you just here for the story can skip them!!
I'm in the Easter holidays right now, so I should be able to upload more frequently than usual.
Comments and votes are much appreciated.
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